Sally Jane Photographic Art

This blog has moved

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:36:00 +0000

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Pet Portrait Stories - Chapter 1

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:50:00 +0000

This was the image that got me started. My father-in-law wanted a photo of our dog, Brac, of whom he is very fond, to hang on his wall. I personally don't generally like straight photos hung on wall so I took the background out and made it into a portrait. Once mounted and framed I liked it so much I just had to do one for myself which got me to thinking that maybe other pet owners would like similar for their pets.

Film Scanner

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 22:12:00 +0000

I now have a film scanner which will allow me to work from negatives supplied by clients where I am otherwise unable to take the photographs myself and the client does not have access to a digital camera. 35mm or medium format film only. All negatives will be returned once scanned.

National Association of Photoshop Professionals

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) is a community of Photoshop enthusiasts lead by the Photoshop guru Scott Kelby. It is an organisation recognised and supported by Adobe. It provides access to hundreds of training videos and tutorials as well as member discounts on hardware and software, a monthly magazines packed with information on Photoshop and Lightroom, a members forum, help and support for any Photoshop or Lightroom problem, and much more. Check it out and take a tour.

Photographer of the Month

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:25:00 +0000

I've been selected as 'Photographer of the Month' for the Photo Nomads blog. You can see the full article here

http://www.photo-nomads.co.uk/wordpress/?p=8897

Free Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:58:00 +0000

I have now added a 'Free Stuff' page to my web site. This page contains exactly what it says, free stuff. so far there is a link to free personas you can use to customise your browser toolbar if you use Firefox 3.6 but I hope to come up with more free stuff to fill this page. Check it out and remember to check back regularly to see what else I come up with.

Photography Tip - Still Life

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 23:03:00 +0000

If you've ever fancied trying your hand at some still life photography weather it be a vase of flowers, bowl of fruit or an ornament you need to consider the background or surface the object is placed on. Next time you are in a haberdashery department take a look in their off-cuts bin to see if you can get some cheap pieces of material. Cream or white satin or black velvet are favourites but natural Hessian or other textured fabrics can also work well. Use something that is not going to detract too much from the subject so avoid patterns. For larger back drops try looking for fabric on e-bay. You can get some amazing deals there.

Cheap Macro Option

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:04:00 +0000

If any of you have your own DSLR cameras and would like to try you hand a macro photography but can't afford the cost of a good macro lens, here is a cheap alternative.

Buy a reversing ring for which ever lens you have with the best low light performance (lowest f/stop number). A reversing ring will only cost a few of quid, mine cost £3.19 from e-bay including postage, and will allow you to mount your lens on your camera backward. Sounds strange? Well I have to say it looks a bit strange but the results are amazing.
Why the lens with the lowest f/stop number? Well, you can use any lens but light is important in macro photography so the more light available the better results.

I bought a 52mm reversing ring for my Nikon D300 which allows me to mount my 50mm f/1.4D lens backwards. The images below show the before and after. The first shot is the closest I can focus with the lens mounted correctly while the second has the lens reversed.
Now for such a cheap option there has to be a drawback, right? Right, there is, you have to focus manually and set the exposure manually without any light metering assistance from the camera. Focussing often means adjusting the distance between the camera and the subject too, rather than using the focussing ring but that may vary from lens to lens. Still, for £3 it's a great little device.

You can achieve even better results if you purchase a coupling ring which allows you to reverse mount a lens on the front of another normally mounted lens. Getting a coupling ring the right size to fit two lenses though can be difficult unless you have two lenses with the same diameter

DIY fix for a problem LCD on a Nikon Coolpix P5100

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:49:00 +0000

My Nikon coolpix P5100 developed an intermittent fault about 6 months after I bought it. I bough it second hand so I could not take it back for a replacement and as it was originally a grey import I could not send it to Nikon for repair either. The fault consisted of the LCD flickering and sometimes turning off unexpectedly. The camera still functioned in all other respects but I couldn't see anything on the screen. Pressing parts of the back of the camera sometimes restored it but not always. Eventually the fault became permanent so I found a repair guy on the internet and sent it off to him. He was very good and told me it was just a loose connection which he fixed and sent the camera back to me after billing me a nominal charge. The work was guaranteed for 6 months. OK, so that was fine.

Last week the LCD started acting up again. It was now over 6 months ago that the repair was carried out. I was faced with either sending it back and paying another repair fee and postage or trying to do something about it myself. I figured, if this was likely to be an ongoing problem with this camera I ought to learn how to fix it myself. I searched on the internet for a solution but found nothing so it was down to trial and error. As this was only a pocket camera and not one I rely on for my portraiture I decided I had little to lose.

You can see a detailed step-by-step guide as to how I fixed the LCD on my P5100 here.

The writing is on the wall

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:11:00 +0000

Blogger have announced that they are going to pull the plug blogs sites like this. All Blogger blogs will in future have to be hosted by Blogger and so will have to have a blogger url and not a domain name url like this one. So, what that means is that if I want to continue to have a blog site as an integrated part of my web site then I have got to look else where for one. If I don't find one before Blogger pulld the plug then this will simply cease to exist. Heyho!

New Galleries

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:20:00 +0000

All the galleries are now fully functional on my sister site at www.sally-jane.co.uk. this site is about general photography rather than Pet Portraits. You will find galleries for various subjects from still life to portraiture. If you are interested in commissioning me for any photographic work you will find contact details on the web site.

Launch Date

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:10:00 +0000

OK, I think I'm just about there. The new web site is ready so I shall upload it on Christmas Day...barring any last minute hitches. I figure that Christmas Day is likely to be the least busiest day for people visiting my web site so no one, or at least very few people, will be put out by not being able to access it during the upload. All being well, and with fingers and toes crossed, it should be open for business again on Boxing Day if not before. Of course, the downside is, if it does all go wrong then I probably won't have much time to fix it as I'll be cooking in the morning and probably a bit too merry in the afternoon. Hey, ho!

Client's Corner

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 15:20:00 +0000

Gaining feedback is the main reason for creating this blog site. So I'm about to put it to the test. If you have commissioned or been presented with one of my portraits and feel you would like to give some feedback please feel free to do so here by clicking on the 'comments' link directly under this post. This is also how you get to read any reviews that have been left. All comments will be moderated to weed out spammers but provided your comment is relevant and not rude or offensive it will be published.

That's it. I mean it this time! I've finished the last video course.

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:59:00 +0000

This was a course on Web Accessibility. I thought I should make my site more accessible to people with disabilities and come up-to-date. My, what a can of worms. Just when I thought I had my site planned this comes in as a low baller. What I'm struggling with is the drop down menus I have planned. Screen readers can't navigate them very well nor can people who are not able to use a mouse. I might have to come to some sort of compromise on this.

There's always one Lemon.

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:52:00 +0000

Well that had to be the worst video tutorial on the planet. 9 hours of puerile babbling by a guy called Richard John Jenkins. OK so he had some relevant points but it could have more effectively been condensed into a maximum of 2 hours. Unfortunately it was the only course on Search Engine Optimisation available on Lynda.com but it left a lot to be desired.

Still wading through tutorials

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:29:00 +0000

I've finally completed the last of the Dreamweaver cs4 video courses that I'm going to do but I have now spied a SEO course on Lynda.com that I shall also take advantage of while I have access. I only have a few days left on my pass so I might as well make the most of it. Having said that, I have made a start on my wed sites new look. My home page is almost complete. The mock-up below shows roughly how it will look.

Just one more.

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:16:00 +0000

Nearly finished. I've just completed a video course on using Spry assets. I'm not sure I'll be going into such detail with them on my new site but at least I know what they can do and I'll probably use some of the more basic ones anyway. I have one more video course I want to complete before I get down to the serious business of putting it all together and designing my new look web site. That course is an in depth course on cascading style sheets. If I get these sorted out right when I build the new site then looking after it and making changes in the future should be a piece of cake. Unfortunately this is a really long course, 12 hours of it! Fitting it all in will take a couple of week I imagine plus I'm definitely going to have to recap on a few of these tutorials. I might just have to extend my membership to Lynda.com

New Logo v1

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:51:00 +0000

Well I've been at it all day. Loads of scribbles on scraps of paper, several rejected Photoshop files plus unteen cups of tea and finally I think I've come up with a new logo. It might still change it or just tweak it a bit before I start on the new look web site but at least I feel like I'm getting somewhere. So, what do you think? Does it fit the bill?
Back in the days of Windows95 a pencil was the first item I managed to draw digitally using the Paint program that came installed with it. Of course, I was just doodling then. Little did I know it would lead me onto starting my own business. Quite appropriate then, that a similar image should form part of my new logo. At least I think so :-)

Out with the Old

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:40:00 +0000

For any of you who have been following this blog, you might be wondering when my promised web site changes are going to happen. Well, one thing I have learned from the training videos is that a web site has to work on paper long before anything is done on the computer. I'm still at the ideas stage, plus there are a few more tutorials I want to get through. One thing I have decided is that my logo, seen here, has to go. These fritilarias are a left over from when I was a garden designer as well as photographer. I never got around to creating a second logo for the photography side of things which was a big mistake. I'm not sure yet what I shall use instead but I have some rough ideas floating around in my head. A good logo is priceless but changing a logo, even if it's a bad one, is not a good idea as it is a major part of a companies branding. If I'm to change it I will have to make sure it is worth while by coming up with something really good...Ideas on a postcard please" :-))

Second Course 'in the bag'

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:06:00 +0000

The second course I took was about presentation and site structure. It was interesting and very relevant but I was not impressed by the teaching style so am unlikely to watch any of it again. Still, I learned a few tips and ideas.

First Course Completed

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:42:00 +0000

As I mentioned, I've been taking a video course in learning how to build my web site the right way. Well, I'm pleased to say I've survived the first course and probably have enough knowledge now to get on an re-plan my site. There are loads more courses available which will go deeper into various aspects such as cascading style sheets and Spry widgets so while I have access to the tutorials I think I'll fill my boots.

Serious Website Rebuild

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:12:00 +0000

When I built my web site initially I found out how to do it by learning
as I went along. The result is it works but I have no idea why and the
coding is very messy. I have now embarked on a series of training video
that tell me how it should have been built. Ooops! Now I'm realising
that the site is a total mess and needs a complete re-build. Don't
worry, it wont be taken down. I'll rebuild the pages on my PC and only
upload them once I have the site finished although I might just tinker
with the current version to make some temporary changes in the mean
time. The up-side of all this is that it allows me to incorporate some
new features if wished. So, if there is anything you think that would
improve my site just let me know. No rush, this will take quite a time
to complete but your input in this as a viewer and user of my site is
important to me. So please, do add a comment below if you have any
suggestions.

All Change

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:16:00 +0000

I've been making lots of changes to my web site and this will probably be an on-going project. If you have any suggestions about improvements I could or should make to the web site please add a comment below. After all, it no good me creating this site just to fit my ideas when it's you, my site visitors, that I need to build it for.

Any Other Business?

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:25:00 +0000

Please use this thread to place any comments, suggestions or ideas here. These my be comments about current products and services, suggestions about how I could improve the service I offer or ideas for other products and services you think I should offer. In fact anything at all (provided it's not rude) that you wish to say. If I feel it warrants it I might open up a new thread to discuss it further. Although you don't have to it would be nice for you to leave a name as it feels more personal that way.

Success...I think

noreply@blogger.com (Sally T) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:44:00 +0000

My blog has now been integrated into my web site. Hopefully anyone reading my blogs will be able to add comments to the posts here even if they don't have an account with blogger. To add a comment or reply to any post just click on the comment link below the post. It's always nicer when you leave a name though.